


Against the dying of the light

by Enochian Things (Salr323)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Castiel, Cas is back!, M/M, Pining, Speculation for season finale, Spoilers up to s11e21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6884977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salr323/pseuds/Enochian%20Things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His knees hit the dirt.  Distant, he feels rather than hears the pulse of Sam’s shout: <i>Dean!</i>  And then there’s nothing but dark mist, a tornado of it, swirling all around him.  Tearing at his clothes and hair.  He thinks that maybe the fighting has begun.  There are vibrations that feel like shrieks, like deaths.  He thinks: <i>Sam</i>.  </p><p>And, with longing, <i>Cas…</i></p><p>Speculation for the end of S11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against the dying of the light

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fried_flamingo for the beta. :)

Sam’s blood may have been polluted by Azazel, by the corruption of Hell, but Dean knows it’s no coincidence that he’s the one the First Blade found. He’s always been drawn to the dark.

Once, as a kid, they’d taken a hunt in a small town up on the coast of Lake Michigan. They’d slept, like they often did, in the Impala, and Dean, as he often did, had found himself startled awake by the distant hoot of some night creature. Sammy and his dad slept on, but Dean had been wide awake. So he’d tucked his knife, the one he’d gotten for his ninth birthday, into his belt and crept out of the car. The lakeshore had been a ten minute walk away through shadowy woodland and he’d soon found himself standing on a little beach with the trees reaching up and over him. Critters scuffled in the brush and there’d been nothing ahead of him but darkness. 

No star, no moon. No light at all. All he could see was the subtle shift of black water, endless as it stretched out beyond the horizon.

Dean hadn’t been afraid. Instead, his heart had leaped toward the dark – toward a place where his terrified love for Sam didn’t wrap him in iron, where there was no ache in the void that his mother left behind. Where there were no hunts. No monsters. No death. A place where he could finally be at peace. Peace like sleep, dreamless in the long cold night.

And he’d known, then, with the black water lapping at his boots, that he had to fight the longing to surrender. He had to fight it with everything he had, otherwise he’d do it – he’d leave Sam, he’d disappoint his dad. He’d fail his mom. He had to struggle to stay in the light; he had to fight just to keep fighting.

He feels it now, that same yearning. It’s a shifting, restless thing inside him – a seductive promise of boundless oblivion. No duty or guilt. No success or failure. No love or loss. Just nothing, the end of all things. 

Peace. 

And, God, he _wants_ it. He’s always wanted it, but now it’s almost impossible to resist. He wants peace more than he wants anything else. More than freedom. More than the chains of love and duty that bind him to Sam. More than the oblivion he finds at the bottom of a bottle or in a night of cheap sex. More than finding God or saving the world.

And Amara can give it to him, he knows she can. __

_What you’re feeling_ , she’d told him, _is that I’m the end of your struggle._

Not a happy ending, he knows that, but not a tragedy either. It won’t be anything at all. It’ll just be over.

Suddenly, light flares out from the bunker’s doorway. Golden against the concrete, it washes over the tips of his boots where he’s sitting on the stairs. 

“Hey,” Sam says, hesitant as he steps outside. “You coming in? It’s late.”

Dean grunts and turns his head away from the glare. “He still in there?”

There’s a beat before Sam says, “Well, we’re not letting him leave. So, yeah, he’s still in here.”

Dean huffs out a noise, the kind of sound that makes it seem like he still cares. “It’s fucked up, Sam.”

“Yeah.” His brother comes to perch on the step next to him, his long legs stretched out past his own. “It’s really fucked up.”

“God and Lucifer as houseguests? It’s like the world’s worst fucking sitcom.”

Sam laughs. 

And, God, that laugh. He’s been chasing it his whole life – gotta keep Sammy happy, gotta keep Sammy safe. He’s so fucking _tired_ of it all.

“It won’t be long now,” Sam says, quickly sober. “Chuck says Amara—”

“Yeah, she’s coming.” The pull of that glorious void, of that promise of extinction, is getting stronger all the time. If he lets go, just for a second, it’ll drag him under.

And he wants to let go. He does. But…

“What about—” His throat closes. He tries to swallow, but can’t. “What about Cas?”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know, man.” His voice is careful, like he’s tiptoeing over landmines. “Lucifer’s still in the driving seat, so...”

Dean grunts. Truth is, he thinks Cas must be dead – or as good as. Crowley said Lucifer had his claws in deep and that was before Amara had tortured the fuck outa him. 

So, yeah, he thinks Cas must be dead. Otherwise he’d have come back. Every other time they’ve faced this end of the world shit, Cas has been right there by his side. The fact that he isn’t, speaks volumes.

His grip on the world slips a little. It’s hard to remember, sometimes, why he’s holding on at all.

“C’mon,” Sam says, a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Let’s get inside. We got stuff to plan.”

He nods, pushes to his feet. His body feels strange, like it’s not quite his own, like he’s walking around in some meat suit, heavy and cumbersome. Limited. __

 _Dean, give up your smallness_ , she’d said, _your humanity. And become boundless within me._

He wishes it didn’t sound so damn appealing.

It’s bright inside the bunker. The oppressive light pulls everything into sharp, unrelenting focus. Dean squints, shields his eyes as he follows Sam down the stairs into the war room. 

Chuck is there – at least he’s wearing pants, now – and so is Lucifer. He’s slouched on the far side of the table, wearing Cas like a thrift-store cast off. His attention is riveted on his heavenly father; the tension between them could crack teeth.

“Oh, hey, there you are,” Chuck says when he notices them. Or pretends to notice them. Who the fuck knows with an omnipresent deity? “We were just talking strategy.”

“Right,” Dean says, as if talking strategy with God and the Devil was something he did every day. “Come up with anything?”

Lucifer turns his eyes on him and it’s a pain, sharp and raw, that he’s learning to hate that face. “Deano,” he says. “Long time, no torment. Miss me?”

“Fuck you,” Dean says and walks past the table toward the kitchen. 

“Dean.” It’s Sam, his taut don’t-do-this voice. 

Reluctantly, Dean turns around. He needs a drink, badly. “What?”

“We gotta work with what we’ve got, man.”

“And that means using Cas like a—” He shakes his head, swallows a rise of bile. Cas is dead. Cas is fucking _dead_. 

“Okay…” Chuck gets to his feet. There’s a stray noodle sticking to his shirt. It makes Dean want to laugh, or punch him in the face. Or say yes. Say yes to Amara and end this. “I can see we have a little problem here,” Chuck says. “What with Castiel playing host to—”

“Playing host?” Dean spits the words. “Are you joking?”

Chuck holds up his hands. “I understand. Castiel is—” He looks at Sam, then back at Dean with a significant rise of his eyebrows. “Castiel is ‘important’ to you.”

“He should be fucking important to _you_ ,” Dean snaps, ignoring the weight Chuck had put on the word. “Do you have any idea what you did to him?” 

“Oh, I know what—”

“He had faith in you, man. He went looking for you. He spent _months_ — And you were right here. You just—”

“Dean,” Sam says again, tense. “We’ve been through this. We need…” He swallows, and Dean realizes he’s being a dick. “We need Lucifer.” Sam’s jaw clamps. “And, trust me, I hate that every bit as much as you do.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, putting a hand on his brother’s arm, trying to take some of his horror from him. Some of the burden. __

_The end of your struggle…_

Irritated, he pushes her voice aside, but he can’t ignore the longing in the pit of his belly. “Just, uh,” he says to Chuck, “just tell me if he’s…okay.”

Chuck blinks his blue eyes. “Kind of depends on your definition of ‘okay’.”

“Is he alive?” Dean snaps. “Is he—?” His gaze pushes toward Lucifer and away; it’s too hard to look at him. “Is he suffering?”

For an instant, there’s an expression on Chuck’s face that transcends the humanity of its flesh: ineffable sorrow, pain, hope, and love. And it almost breaks Dean, almost drives him to his knees. 

Then it’s gone and Chuck’s just a man again. He blinks and says, “Castiel is made of strong stuff, Dean, the strongest stuff in the universe.” He tips his head. “Don’t you know that yet?”

As usual, the guy’s talking crap and Dean doesn’t have the patience. “Then why not zap him out?” he says, flinging a hand toward Lucifer. 

“Dean,” Sam says. “We need Lucifer.”

“Well we don’t need him wearing Cas!”

Sam’s face pales. “We don’t have another vessel…”

“We don’t need one,” Dean says. He turns to Chuck. “You made a vessel for Cas. Do the same for Lucifer.”

But Chuck shakes his head, sits back down and puts his feet up on the table. There’s a hole in one of his socks. “No can do,” he says. “Above my pay grade.”

“You’re literally God!”

He equivocates. “And, as God, I made certain rules and regulations. I’m not exempt, you know. Well, from some of them I am. Physics, for example. I can bend the heck outa physics. But not this one.”

“This one being what?” Dean says.

Chuck doesn’t answer. It’s Lucifer who says, “Only the vessel can cast an angel out. Imagine the chaos if a third party got involved?”

Dean keeps his eyes on Chuck. “That’s stupid. You’re _God_.”

“Live by the rules, die by the rules. It’s free will, baby.”

“But Cas—”

“That was different. Jimmy Novak was in Heaven and Castiel was dead.” He narrows his eyes at Lucifer who simply gives an indifferent shrug. “When I brought him back,” Chuck carries on, “Castiel just needed something to wear. His choice, by the way. I could have made him…” He twitches an eyebrow and mimes something curvaceous. “… but he liked the old one. Sentimental reasons, he said. I tried to talk him out of that awful coat, but, well, we only had a millisecond. Not that Castiel remembers.” He makes a gunshot gesture. “I neuralyzed him, Agent J style.”

Dean can’t take in even half of this bullcrap, and anyway the only important thing is that Chuck can’t – or won’t – save Cas. “So he’s stuck in there forever?” 

“No,” Chuck says. “He can throw Lucifer out any time he wants.”

“So why doesn’t he?”

Chuck smiles and there’s a flicker of that transcendent emotion on his face once more. “Perhaps he’s lacked sufficient motivation. So far.”

And Dean can’t imagine what that might mean. Cas is possessed by the literal devil, he’s been tortured by Amara… 

What more motivation could he need?

***

The battle, when it comes, is at Stull Cemetery.

Or course it’s at Stull.

“I always thought the Jebel al-Madhbah would be more poetic,” Lucifer says as they arrive, looking around as if there’s a stench under his nose. “I mean, Kansas. Really?”

Chuck says, “Man, the Middle East was so two-millennia ago: been there, done that, fermented generations of religious conflict. Why not give the new world a go?”

The bickering grates on Dean’s nerves, makes him itch with the need to punch something.

“Hey,” Sam says, dropping a concerned hand on his shoulder. “Dude, you okay?”

He shakes his head, not so much in denial as to dislodge the persistent pressure that’s been building in his mind the whole way here. “She’s coming,” he says, scraping breath into his lungs. “She’s coming…”

The thrum of power is a physical thing beating at his head. It’s like standing too close to the speakers at a Metallica gig; his ears are bleeding with the pressure. It’s too loud, but somehow there’s no sound at all. There’s everything and there’s the void. 

And he – Dean – is trapped between the two.

His knees hit the dirt. Distant, he feels rather than hears the pulse of Sam’s shout: _Dean!_ And then there’s nothing but dark mist, a tornado of it, swirling all around him. Tearing at his clothes and hair. He thinks that maybe the fighting has begun. There are vibrations that feel like shrieks, like deaths. He thinks: _Sam_. 

And, with longing, _Cas…_

Then Amara is there. The mist whips around her, but she, at the center of it all, is perfectly still. Everything is silenced by the enormity of her presence. __

 _Dean_ , she says. _It’s time_.

And he wants to go to her, he does. (He doesn’t.) He wants to step into that silence, embrace the long dark sleep. 

He wants it to be over. __

 _Leave all of this behind_ , she says, reaching for him. _I can feel your pain, Dean. Your sorrow and loss. Your anger. You can leave it all behind, you can just let it burn._

“I can’t,” he says, grinds the words between his teeth. “I _have_ to stay. I have to fight.” Because he has a duty, he knows he does. Only, he doesn’t _feel_ it. He doesn’t feel anything now but tired. 

All tender concern, Amara says _, No,_ _Dean, you don’t have to fight anymore. Your struggle is over. Now it’s time for the peace you long for. All you have to do is let go…_

He tries to deny it, even as he yearns toward her. “You’ll destroy everything!” __

_Not destroy_ , she says _. Recreate in my own image. What is His creation, Dean, but death? Everything is dying, even the stars. The universe is a place of endless suffering._ Flinging her arms wide, her anger is as cold as the void. _My brother calls His creation great, but He’s blind to the truth of what he’s made. All He has created is sorrow! And I can end it, Dean – for you, for everyone. All will be at peace within me, forever._

She tips her head, her dark eyes drawing him in. They’re empty, he thinks. Like her. They’re nothing. A beautiful nothing. _Dean,_ she says, _let go. Just let go…_

And he wants to, he does. He wants that peace; he wants everything to just stop. Not only for him, but for the world. Because she’s right: life is nothing but a long and bloody road to death. 

Amara smiles and reaches down, waiting for him to take her hand. _You can have it all, Dean. You can be boundless within me._

He lifts his hand, stretches it out toward her. He’s so close: _yes_ is hanging on his lips.

Something ripples through the void. It’s not triumph; there’s no feeling here.  
It’s more like a shiver of expectation, a shark circling before it feeds. 

The moment his hand touches hers, the sky cracks. A great splinter of lightning arcs above them, illuminating the whole sky an incandescent white. __

 _What is this?_ Amara looks up, dismayed. _Brother, show yourself!_

Dean startles back, craning his neck. He can see nothing around him but eddies of gray mist. But he can hear the sounds of battle again, the screams of the dying. He thinks _if I go with her, I can end this._

The sky splits again, a roar of light from horizon to horizon, ending in a dagger of lightning that hammers down and into the earth between them. Dean flies back and lands hard in the dirt, the air punched from his lungs. Under his fingers he feels grass and grit – is he still at Stull? He blinks at the flickering sky, then rolls over and pushes himself to his hands and knees and— 

Freezes.

Lucifer is there, behind him, bent on one knee with his head bowed. Dean can see the breathless rise and fall of his shoulders, feel the static power searing out from him. The air is thick with ozone. __

 _This is the best you can do?_ Amara rages at the sky _. You send your fallen servant to fight me – again?_ _Are you such a coward, brother?_

 __God makes no answer.

Shakily, Dean pushes himself to his feet. His back is bruised, the muscles in his limbs ache. It’s evidence, if he needed more, that he’s just a man. Just a man standing between the Devil and the Darkness.

Fuck. __

 _Come with me_ , Amara demands from behind him. _Take my hand and we will end this, Dean. It will be over. Forever._

And, yes, he wants that. He wants peace. More than anything, he wants peace. He opens his mouth to say it, but another voice speaks first.

“No.” Lucifer lifts his head and Dean chokes; he can’t gasp air into his lungs. Because he knows those eyes, that imperious gaze sparking bright with power and fury. “No,” says Castiel, Angel of the Lord, “you will not have him.” He stands in one fluid motion, his great shadowy wings rising at his back. And he’s glorious. He’s magnificent. He’s a creature of great and terrible power, awesome in his radiance.

Dean stumbles back a step, finds himself crashing back to his knees. “Cas…?” His voice is raw, just a whisper. __

_What is this?_ Amara hisses. _Castiel? How can_ you _stop me when Lucifer failed? You’re nothing!_

Castiel ignores her; his eyes are fixed only on Dean. There is light everywhere, inside him, around him, and Dean can hardly breathe past his brilliance. “I can’t offer you peace,” Cas says, in a voice that’s resonant with divine power and yet, somehow, still his own. “I can only offer you life: struggle, loss, and pain. But also hope and joy. And love. Dean, the greatest of all things is love.” He holds out his hand. “And I offer it to you.”

Dean tries to swallow, but can’t. Something inside him is filling up, overflowing. His eyes burn, his face is wet with tears. And he feels… He feels _so much_. It’s bright and dark, love and loss. Pain and hope. It’s _everything_. It’s all of creation. __

 _It’s inside of me_ , he realizes. _It’s what I am_. The light and the dark, and yet neither one. 

In the end, just a man. Holding the world in balance. __

 _No!_ Amara howls, digs her empty fingers and promises into his back. _Dean, your destiny lies with me. Your peace, your perfect ending – it’s all inside of me!_

“No,” he says, turning back to face her fury. “No. I don’t want it. I don’t want you. I want to live and fight and lose and die and— And love.” His voice catches on the truth of it. “I want to love. I _do_ love.” __

 _Follow your heart_ , someone had once told him. _Follow your heart_.

He understands it now.

At his words, before his eyes, Amara twists into something different. Something forsaken and hopeless: a howling void of despair. It’s her true form, Dean realizes in horror. Her true form is desolation. 

Shaking, he turns away and into the light. 

Castiel stands with his hand outstretched and Dean walks toward him, takes his fingers – warm, human fingers – in his own and doesn’t stop walking until they’re standing face-to-face. And it’s him, it’s Cas. Behind the power and the glory, it’s still his friend. “Cas…” It’s a sob of relief, of gratitude. “ _Cas_.”

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, human words for Dean alone, breathed soft against his ear as Cas wraps him in his arms. “I will always have you, Dean.” And then those great wings furl around them, redolent with heaven’s glory, and Dean knows in his heart that he’s safe.

Behind him the Darkness screams her despair as Dean lays his head on Cas’s shoulder, puts a hand to his face, and lets the light flow through him. It burns fierce, terrible and triumphant. 

It’s all of creation; it’s God’s power manifest. But most of all, it’s love. 

It’s his love. Their love.

In a voice not his own, a voice resounding with the magnificence of Heaven, Castiel calls out, “Dean Winchester is saved!”

And the world cracks apart. 

***

When the dust settles, it’s falling like fine rain on Dean’s back. 

He lifts his head where he’s kneeling in the dirt, blinking through the predawn light at utter devastation. He’s seen something like this before, the day he clawed himself out of his own grave.

Only this time, he’s not alone. Cas – he hopes it’s Cas – is getting to his feet next to him, hair and coat covered in the same grit that’s scratching Dean’s skin, looking around him at the blast zone that was once Stull.

As far as Dean can tell, they’re alone.

“Cas?” he coughs, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and spits out dirt.

“Yes, it’s me,” Cas says glancing down at him. His eyes are bright through the coating of grime. 

_Thank God_ , Dean thinks. But he’s not sure it’s Chuck he should be thanking, so he just says, “What the hell happened?” 

“God,” Cas says, and tips his face up to the sky like he might be able to see him. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

Cas turns his eyes on him. “So is the Darkness, I think. They’re together – elsewhere.”

“Yeah.” As he says it, Dean knows it’s true; he can’t feel Amara anymore, can’t feel that tug in the pit of his belly. He can breathe easily again. “Yes, she’s gone…” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Where’s Sam?”

“Safe.” Cas closes his eyes for a moment, then smiles. “And on his way. He’ll be here soon.”

Dean huffs out his relief as he gazes at the destruction around them. “Tell me you know what the fuck happened, Cas.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you,” he says and offers Dean a hand up.

For a moment Dean just stares at his hand. The gesture is an echo of what they’ve just shared, deliberate perhaps, and Cas is watching him intently, the way he once did when he was new to the world and trying to make sense of humanity. There’s something of the divine about him still, something powerful and _other_. But also there's dirt in his hair, on his face, and his eyes are filled with concern.

Swallowing, Dean takes the offered hand and lets Cas pull him to his feet. 

“Are you alright?” Cas says when they’re standing close.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Except that he can’t look away from Cas's intent gaze, can’t move his hand from where it’s caught between his fingers. Dean’s silent, just looking for a moment. There’s so much to say, he doesn’t know where to begin. In the end, he just says, “You came back, man. You came back for me.” 

Cas shakes his head. “I should never have left. Dean, I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t. You saved me, Cas. You brought me back from the edge.” He wonders if Cas can see the awe he feels when he looks at him, the bone-shaking astonishment at what he’s just witnessed. “Dude, you were... you were fucking _awesome_.”

Cas smiles, almost shy, but none of his previous intensity has disappeared. Dean might not be able to see his wings anymore, but all his angelic brilliance is right there in his eyes. “I think we saved each other, Dean,” he says. 

“Yeah.” Leaning in, Dean lets their foreheads come together. There’s grit between them now and he can feel the human heat of Cas’s body against his; it spikes something low and earthy in the pit of his stomach. “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d lost you, man.”

“And I you. I thought— When you took her hand, I was afraid I’d left it too late to….” He stops, swallowing hard.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says; he feels so ashamed. “I don’t know why I wanted… She was so _empty_.” He closes his eyes against the memory. “I almost destroyed everything, Cas.”

“Dean…” His voice shakes and he doesn’t say more right away, just takes a couple of steadying breaths. A beat passes, then another. At length, he says, “I understand the appeal of oblivion, Dean. For many months I tried to find it in distraction, in forgetfulness.” He makes a wry sound. “Otherwise known as Netflix. And look how that ended? I became so lost that I freed Lucifer from the cage after you and Sam had suffered so much to return him there. And then I—” He swallows. “Dean, I _buried_ myself beneath him. I turned my back on all my responsibilities and I hid.” He looks up, his eyes bright with emotion as he pulls back enough that Dean can see his face. “I understand what Amara offered you, Dean, and I understand why you were tempted to embrace it.” He reaches up and presses his palm to Dean’s face, his touch tender and his eyes... God, his _eyes_. “But I’m happier than I can express that you chose to live.”

Dean has to swallow a couple times before he can speak, and even then his voice comes out scratchy. “Thing is,” he says, “what I really chose was you.”

Cas goes still for a moment, his breath hitching and his eyes widening. 

It’s such a vulnerable, human response that Dean has to fight the urge to just hug the hell out of him. Instead, before his courage fails, he says, “I don’t know what it means, man. I don’t know what this is, but… But I chose you. I did.”

“And I chose you,” Cas says, without an ounce of reserve. “Dean, I’ve always chosen you. I always will.”

Like a freakin’ _girl_ , Dean feels his lips tremble. “Sonofabitch,” he growls and pulls Cas into his arms, buries his face against his neck. “Sonofa _bitch_ …”

Cas hugs him back, holds him tight. And it’s different from last time: gritty and raw and human. Dean twists his fingers into Cas’s hair, drags his mouth over the stubble of his jaw, breathes warm against his dusty skin. And then… And then they’re kissing. _Really_ kissing. And Dean’s never kissed a guy like this and he’s partly freaking out and partly dizzy with how right it feels. How good. How freakin’ _inevitable_.

“Cas,” he breathes as they pull apart, foreheads coming to rest together again. “Cas, this is… It’s…”

“Yes.” Cas growls the word, his hand warm and heavy on the back of Dean’s neck. Ostensibly he’s holding Dean close, but it feels like he’s holding himself up too; they’re both exhausted. “It defies description, Dean. It’s probably unique in the history of creation. An angel – a twice-fallen angel – and a mortal man, bound so profoundly on both the physical and celestial plains?” He shakes his head, and Dean smiles at his wonder and sincerity. “It could almost be a legend.”

He snorts a laugh that’s as much giddy relief as it is amusement. “Hey, we _are_ freakin’ legendary, dude.”

“Quite literally,” Cas agrees. But his eyes are warm and fond and Dean thinks he’s teasing. Kinda. Maybe.

Dean nudges his shoulder against him, lets his fingers trail down the sleeves of his coat to catch his hands. He nuzzles a little closer, kissing the edge of his mouth again. It feels electric, sparking sensation all over his body. Cas closes his eyes, a little fluttering gesture, and then murmurs, “Dean. Your brother.”

Startled, Dean looks over his shoulder. In the distance, against the rising sun, something’s kicking up a trail of dirt at the edge of the blast zone, sending it high into the brightening sky. Dean smiles; he’d recognize his Baby anywhere. Then he winces as Sam drives her too fast over the potholed ground. “That’s gonna kill the shocks,” he grumbles.

Cas squeezes his hand, then lets go and starts to step away. But Dean catches hold of him again; Sam’s too far away to see anyway. “Hey,” he says, “you’re coming back with us, right? Back to the bunker?” He feels a sudden spike of disquiet. “I mean, I know you’ve got your wings back and – fuck, they’re _awesome_ – and I’d get it if you need to go hang out upstairs.” Although he wouldn’t; those winged dicks never deserved Cas. “But I want you to know that— I want you to… _Fuck_ ,” he says and takes a breath. “I just want you, okay? I want you with me, if you— If that’s something you—”

“Dean,” Cas says. “Stop.” He glances past him, toward the rising rumble of the Impala, and then fixes Dean with a steady look. His eyes have taken on something of their intimidating celestial light and it makes Dean shiver. “Don’t underestimate what happened here, today,” Cas says. “This bond we share?” He looks like he’s trying to scry the future in Dean’s eyes, so intent is his gaze. “It saved the world, Dean. So if you’re asking me whether I’d rather be with you or in Heaven, or anywhere else in creation, then don’t. Because the answer will always be with you. Do you understand that, Dean?”

Swallowing, he nods. “Yeah, that’s… Loud and clear, man.”

“Good,” Cas says, stepping back and lifting a hand to wave at Sam as the car slows. “Then I guess it’s time to go home.”

Home: the word pierces his fucking _soul_.

With a hiss of gravel, the Impala pulls up and Sam leaps out. Then he stops dead, the sun rising at his back, grinning like he’s witnessing a verifiable miracle. 

Maybe it’s obvious, this thing between them. Or maybe it’s just Sam; maybe he’s always known. Maybe he's just happy to see them alive.

Either way, Dean reaches out and tugs Cas’s sleeve. “Come on, buddy,” he says. “Let’s go home.” 

With a smile, Cas nods and together they walk toward Sam and into the brightening light of a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas.
> 
> My take on what might (haha) happen at the end of Season 11 – due to be Jossed very soon! You can find me on Tumblr as [enochian-things](http://www.enochian-things.tumblr.com/) so come and say hi! :)


End file.
